Tax Realty Consultant

A real estate agent and a brokerage who say they brought a $5.5-million offer from a local property developer to the family that owned the Greenbryre Golf Course is suing to recover $250,000 in commissions they say are owed them.

Norbert Cyca and Hallmark Realty & Associates Ltd. filed suit in December against the Petrill Golf Co. Ltd., Peter and Sherrill Semko, the Semko Family Trust and a numbered Saskatchewan company that completed the purchase of the private golf course on south Boychuk Drive last August.

The numbered company, owned by property developer Gary Gaudet, is working with the RM of Corman Park to seek zoning changes to turn the property, or a portion of it, into residential housing. However, the new owners have advertised the golf course will operate as usual this summer.

The Semkos filed a statement of defence this month alleging the deal Cyca brought to them did not look after their larger financial interests because it wasn’t favourable to the tax implications of selling real estate.

Cyca is working out of a different real estate brokerage in Saskatoon. However, in fall 2006, when working at Hallmark, he contacted the Semkos and asked them if they were open to an offer for the family-owned course.

Within six days of the Semkos signing an exclusive listing agreement with Cyca and Hallmark, an offer was brought in from Mini Mansion Homes Ltd. that exceeded the minimum asking price set by the Semkos. However, the commission in the original listing agreement was fixed at $250,000.

Mini Mansion is a company owned by Gaudet, best known for developing the Casa Rio residential development south of the city.

The statement of claim alleges the deal was changed by the vendors after the Semkos were given accounting and tax advice that there would get better income tax treatment if Mini Mansion bought the shares of Petrill Golf Co. Ltd., rather than the land alone. As part of that arrangement, Mini Mansion created a new numbered company for the purposes of acquiring the shares in Petrill Golf.

Cyca and Hallmark allege Petrill, the Semkos and the family trust reworked the deal as an “attempt to avoid paying the commission.”

However, the statement of defence alleges Cyca discouraged the Semkos from taking the time needed to consider their position and seek professional accounting, tax and legal advice “prior to entering into a contract of this magnitude.” Proof of that haste, the Semkos say, is that Cyca used a listing agreement normally used for individual house sales.

Had the original land deal gone ahead, the Semkos stood to lose about $1 million in income taxes to the Canada Revenue Agency, the defence document states.

The Semkos’ defence also rests on a clause they say is in the original offer of purchase which made the land deal conditional on approvals by the RM of Corman Park and the province for rezoning and subdividing the property for condo use. The Semkos claim the original offer of purchase had a clause that stated if those approvals had not been received by April 1, 2007, the deal would be “null and void.”

The Semko defence states the final sales agreement negotiated with Gaudet’s numbered company wasn’t finished until Aug. 2, 2007, and included the sale of shares instead of land, a different sales price and no conditions on a zoning amendment being achieved.

Neither the statement of claim, nor the statements in the defence, have been proven in court.

http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/business/story.html?id=82ae1eb7-52be-4d94-b24b-e6fa474e958c